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I 


From  a  fl.olo  by]  [p.   A.  Swaim.  Nat  Bond  Street,  W. 

CAPTAIN    BRUCE    BAIRNSFATHER. 

[Frontispiece. 


BAIRNSFATHER 

A  Few  Fragments  from  His  Life 

COLLECTED    BY    A    FRIEND 


With  some  Critical  Chapters  by 
VIVIAN    CARTER 

Editor  of  '  The  Bystander  * 


NEW  YORK 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

LONDON 
THE  BYSTANDER 


3; 


THE   FIRST   FRAGMENT 
The  Man  and  His  Vogue       .... 


PAGE 

9 


THE  SECOND   FRAGMENT 


Early  Days 


THE  THIRD  FRAGMENT 
Days  of  Adventure 


19 


31 


THE  FOURTH  FRAGMENT 

Bairnsfather  as  a  Fragment  in  France 


.      47 


THE  FIFTH  FRAGMENT 
Days  of  Discovery 

THE  SIXTH   FRAGMENT 
The  Essence  of  '  Fragments  ' :    A  Real  Conversation 

5 


63 


79 


ivi99734 


THE    FIRST    FRAGMENT 


THE    MAN    AND    HIS   VOGUE 

IF  only  we  can  get  them  laughing.'  So  remarks  to 
himself  the  individual  who  has  a  difficult  '  crowd '  to 
manage — a  crowd  out  of  humour,  critical,  peevish,  bored 
and  disillusioned.  Were  the  affairs  of  the  Great  Nations  in  the 
hands  of  practical  men,  laughter  would  be  one  of  the  muni- 
tions of  war,  and  the  recruiting  of  humorists  would  be  the  job 
of  a  special  department  in  Whitehall.  ^  Instead  of  which  '  the 
humorist  has  been,  in  our  country  since  the  war,  perhaps, 
regarded  askance  until — well,  until  the  subject  of  this  booklet 
appeared  on  the  horizon,  Bruce  Bairnsfather,  Captain  of  the 
Royal   Warwicks. 

Bairnsfather  has  been  the  unsohcited  and  unexpected  laughter- 
maker-in-ordinary  to  the  forces  of  the  British  Empire  at  war 
— a  volunteer  laughter-maker,  who  combined  laughter-making 
with  fighting,  and  extracted  mirth  and  drollery  from  the  most 
horrible  situations  ever  endured  by  human  man,  situations  which 
have  made  words  of  profanity,  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  the 
King's  EngUsh. 


10  FRAGMENTS 


At  first,  while  the  Army  received  them  with  unrestrained 
delight,  the  public  at  home  received  his  sketches — which  were 
originally  published  weekly  in  the  Bystander^  and  afterwards  in 
book-form  under  the  title  Fragments  from  France — with  amused 
bewilderment.  That  they  were  the  ^  real  thing '  so  far  as 
fidelity  goes,  was  obvious  enough,  for  who  but  a  man  who  had 
been  out  there  would  have  depicted  trenches  and  dug-outs, 
Johnson  holes,  battered  tin  pots,  derelict  buildings,  dead  cats, 
as  did  this  man  ?  Who  else  would  have  shown,  in  the  fore- 
ground of  devastation,  an  old  boot  resting  on  a  candlestick  on 
one  side  of  a  Johnson  'ole,  with  a  cheap  timepiece  on  the  other  ? 
Who  but  a  man  who  had  been  there  would  ever  even  have 
dreamed,  in  his  wildest  nightmare,  of  the  officer's  sword  being 
used  as  a  toasting-fork?  Realistic  as  the  sketches  were,  the 
stay-at-home  public  at  first  found  it  difficult  to  believe  that  there 
could  breathe  a  '  chiel,'  living  in  such  an  atmosphere  of  death, 
who  was  able  to  tak'  such  notes,  and  to  print  them.  Yet  as 
the  weeks  wore  on  it  became  obvious  that  there  was  such  a 
man,  and  all  doubt  as  to  his  actual  identity  was  speedily  set 
at  rest  by  men  who  had  seen  him  themselves.  Besides,  the 
papers  published  his  photograph,  in  uniform,  and  at  the  front. 
So  there  must  be  such  a  man  ! 

One  knows  that  people  at  home,  safely  out  of  danger,  can 
dig  out  humour  from  anything  if  they  work  hard  enough,  and  keep 


FRAGMENTS 


II 


their  eyes  well  away  from 
But  who  is  the  man  who 
Bairnsfather  was  blown  up 
of  Ypres — that  can  laugh  at  it  himself, 
to  laugh  ?  For  Bairnsfather  has  not 
Britain  and  the  trenches  of  all  the 
America  and  the  neutral  countries. 
German  prisoners'  camp  in  Siberia, 
'  thanks  '  of  the  enemy  in  terms  that 
ensuing  chapter.  He  has  been  the 
tion  in  the  House,'  and  the  recipient 
from  highly  placed  personages.  It 
that  he  has  been  worth  several  Army 
by  virtue  of  the  stimulus  he  has 
imparted  to  the  always  latent  good- 
humour  of  the  British  soldier.  He  \ 
has  carried  on,  in  quaint  pictorial 
form,  what  Kipling  originated,  the 
tradition  of  Tommy  Atkins  the  man. 

Yes,  but  what  kind  of  man  is  this 
who  makes  war — the  most  awful  tragedy 
in  human  experience  —  seem  screamingly 
funny  ?  That  is  what  you  probably  want 
to  know,  and  that  is  what  it   is  the  object 


anything  sickening, 
has  been  through  it — 
at  the  second  Battle 
and  compel  others 
only  convulsed  Great 
fronts,  but  also 
He  has  reached  a 
and  received  the 
are  quoted  in  an 
subject  of  a  '  Ques- 
of  remarkable  letters 
has  been  said  of  him 
Corps  to  the  Allies 


12 


FRAGMENTS 


of  this  little  book  to  tell  you.  First,  as  to  the  man  as  he  is 
to-day.  He  is  twenty-eight,  and  doesn't  look  it.  He  is  slight 
of  build,  and  his  face  has  a  refined  intuitive  look,  with  eyes 
that  are  clearly  enough  noting  anything  there  is  to  be  noted 
about  yourself.  A  more  closely  observant  man  does  not  exist: 
his  sense  of  detail  in  character  is  almost  Dickensian.  If,  at  an 
interview  with  a  *  personality,'  you  have  noted  nine 
things  out  of  ten,  Bairnsfather  will  have  got  the 
whole  ten,  and  the  tenth  will  be  the  salient  feature, 
the  essential  note. 

Yet,  as  with  most  humorists,  the  last  thing 
you  would  suspect  Bairnsfather  to  be  would  be 
a — humorist.     He    is   anything  but   a  trade-mark 

of  his  own  wares. 

If  a  sudden  *  strafe  '  threw 
you   together    into   the   same 
Johnson   'ole,  the  last  person 
you  would  suspect  your  com- 
panion   to   be   on  the  arrival 
of    '  another   hopeless 
dawn '  would  be  the 
creator  of '  Fragments .' 
Like  all  true  humor- 
ists, the  source  of  his 


FRAGMENTS 


13 


inspiration  is  deep  down  in  his  nature.    His  inspiration  is  not  from 

the  thing  casually  seen  or  heard,  but  from  the  thing  constantly 

felt.      Very    few    of   his    sketches   have    struck   him    '  all    of    a 

sudden  like.'     To  obhge  his  editor,   thirsting   for   contributions, 

he  is   never  at  a  loss.     At  a   luncheon  or  dinner  table,  at  the 

request  of  a  fellow  guest,  on  a  menu-card  or  in   one  of  those 

awful   albums,    he   rarely   fails    to   deliver    the  requisite    goods. 

That  is  because,  as  will  afterwards  be  mentioned, 

he   has   a   stage  instinct   and  habit,  and  much 

of  the    actor's    desire   to   please    and   to    keep 

ever  handy  the  emergency  gag  or  prop.   Yet  a 

more  naturally  unaffected  man  does  not  breathe, 

and  if  he  is  not  an  obvious  soldier-type,  neither 

is   he  an   obvious  type  of  anything  else.      He 

possesses    the    magic    quality    of    individuality, 

though   to   get   to   know   precisely    what   it    is 

requires    you    to    have    the    persistency    of    a 

geologist. 

To   discover  a  humorist  to  be   present   in 
Baimsfather,  the  best  way  is  to  conduct  a  con- 
versation on  the  subject  least  humorous  in  the    | 
world;  and  to  get  him  to  give  you  his  impressions 
of  Tommy  the  best  way  is  to  start  on  the  causes,    ^^S^^^^his^^ossible 

,  J  111-  r    ^1.      /^         <_  W7  APPEARANCE  AFTER 

conduct,  and  probable  issue  01  the  Great  War.       the  war. 


14  FRAGMENTS 


He  will  talk  strategy  and  tactics  with  the  usual  frankness  of  the 
man  who  has  sampled  them  on  the  spot,  but  sooner  or  later  you 
will  see  a  little  glint  in  his  eye,  and  you  may  register  the  fact 
that  he  has  thought  of  a  '  Fragment.'  Probably  he  won't  tell  you 
what  it  is,  for  he  dislikes  to  display  anything  until  it  is  finished. 
But  in  the  course  of  the  conversation  on  the  war,  we  have 
talked  of  soldier  types,  and  Bairnsfather  will  have  suddenly 
remembered  something  one  of  them  once  said  to  him,  or  some 
situation  he  was  once  in. 

You  will  also  realize  that  it  is  for  the  soldier-man  himself, 
the  private,  that  Bairnsfather  has  all  his  affection,  and  his  best  pictures 
are  those  which  display  together  the  two  types,  Bert,  the  novice 
from  home,  and  Bill,  who  has  been  out  since  Mons.  Bert  is 
clean-shaved  and  has  a  cigarette  drooping  from  his  lips  and  an 
innocent  look  of  inquiry  on  his  face,  while  Bill  is  broad,  notable 
chiefly  for  his  scrubby  moustache  and  that  '  fed-up '  look  in 
his  eyes.  Though  himself,  in  his  own  words,  '  disguised  as 
that  screaming  absurdity  a  captain,'  it  is  to  Bill  and  Bert  that 
his  heart  goes  out.  He  and  his  class  have  been  through 
the  same  experiences  that  are  depicted  in  the  Bystander^  but 
Bairnsfather  regards  that  as  the  normal  business  of  the  officer, 
whereas  he  regards  Bill  and  Bert  as  persons  who  are  in 
the  war,  dug  right  into  it,  without  any  previous  thought  or 
intention  of  their  own.    These  '  jungle-folk,'  as  he  affectionately 


THOUGHT  YOU   SAID  YOUR   UNCLE   WAS  A-SENDING  YOU   AN   UMBRELLA/ 

A   CHARACTERISTIC   'FRAGMENT  FROM  FRANCE.' 

[To  face  p.  14, 


FRAGMENTS  15 


calls  the  men  in  the  trenches,  are  as  a  sort  of  army  of  Alices  in 
Wonderland,  doing  the  most  marvellous  things,  and  enduring 
the  most  amazing  experiences,  but  all  the  time  wondering. 

The  following  *  Fragments  '  from  his  life  are  from  material 
jotted  down  by  various  of  his  friends  and  associates.  No  serious 
biography  is  attempted — Bruce  Baimsfather  is  too  young  to  be 
'  biographed  ' — but  only  a  sketch  of  the  career  and  personality, 
the  thoughts  and  ideas,  of  one  who  has  made  his  mark,  in  his 
own  individual  way,  while  taking  part  in  the  greatest  war  of 
history.  The  illustrations  have  been  collected  from  a  variety  of 
sources,  and  represent,  on  the  whole,  the  trend  of  the  humorist's 
fancy  before  the  war  brought  him  fame. 


THE    SECOND    FRAGMENT 


EARLY    DAYS 

CHARLES  BRUCE  BAIRNSFATHER  is  the  eldest  son 
of  Major  Thomas  Bairnsfather,  of  the  Cheshires, 
many  years  a  resident  at  Bishopton,  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  and  now  acting  as  District  Recruiting  Officer  in  the  home 
of  Shakespeare.  Bruce  is  towards  the  end  of  his  twenties,  and 
was  schooled  at  the  school  of  Stalky  &  Co.— Westward  Ho!— 
having  been,  like  the  earlier  depicter  of  the  moods  of  Tommy— 
the  old-type  Tommy— Rudyard  Kipling,  born  in  India  and  trans- 
planted home  to  be  educated. 

Major  Bairnsfather  himself  combined  soldiering  with  painting 
and  musical  composition,  and  was  the  producer  of  several 
successful  musical  comedies  at  Simla,  the  best  known  having  been 
the  *  Mahatma,'  the  score  of  which  the  writer  ran  through 
recently  with  considerable  interest  and  admiration.  Mrs.  Bairns- 
father having  been  herself  a  painter  of  taste,  completed  the 
hereditary  influence.  So  that  if  Bruce  didn't  draw,  or  do 
something  artistic,  there  was  really  no  excuse  for  him.  Nobody 
has,  however,  been  more  astonished  at  the  precise  form  his  art 

19 


20 


FRAGMENTS 


has  taken  than  his  devoted  parents,  and  to  their  credit  be  it 
said,  none  have  shown  more  pleasure  and  appreciation  than 
they.    Any  tendencies  to   *  art '  shown  in  a  marked  form  before 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  INDIA. 
•  I  DIDN'T  KNOW  OF  A  BETTER  'OLE.  SO  COULDN'T  GO  TO  IT. 

the  war  were  in  the  direction  of  the  stage,  for  Baimsfather  is 
an  amateur  comedian  of  some  merit,  and  was  one  of  the  prime 
successes  at  a  famous  pantomime  given  at  Compton  Verney,  by 


»qii 


'THIS    OUGHT    TO    CATCH    YOUR    EYE.' 


[To  face  p.  ^t 


FRAGMENTS  21 


Lord  and  Lady  Willoughby  de  Broke.  His  love  of  the  stage 
runs  to  the  variety  theatre  rather  than  the  legitimate,  but  in 
the  latter  direction  he  compensates  for  any  deficiencies  by  a 
deep  love  of  the  Bard  of  Avon  in  all  his  moods,  and  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  his  resorts  : — 

Piping  Pebworth,  dancing  Marston, 
Haunted  Hillborough,  hungry  Grafton, 
Dodging  Exhall,  Papist  Wixford, 
Beggarly  Broom,  and  Drunken  Bidford. 

He  did  his  bit  for  the  *  Stratford  movement  '—which  is  un- 
fairly the  subject  of  a  certain  amount  of  local  satire — by 
designing  two  of  the  Festival  posters.  At  Stratford  itself,  he 
figured  in  the  Aladdin  pantomime;  also  toured  the  locality 
with  an  '  Ali  Baba '  of  his  own.  One  of  his  peace- trophies  at 
Bishopton  is  his  *  Bishopton  Empire ' — a  toy  contrived  with  every 
working  detail,  with  cardboard  marionette  of  George  Robey,  Vesta 
Tilley,  Billy  Merson,  Harry  Lauder,  and  most  of  the  other 
famous    stars  of  the  pre-war  period. 

Bairnsfather  confesses  to  an  intimate  love  of  the  variety  show. 
He  has  an  intuitive  sympathy  with  the  human  element  ^  behind  ' 
and  a  most  surprisingly  complete  knowledge  of  the  geography 
of  music-halldom,  in  London  and  the  provinces.  So  that,  had 
he  chosen  the  stage  as  profession,  his  neighbours  would  have 
'  told  each  other  so  '  with  a  vengeance.    Had  he  even   come  out 


22  FRAGMENTS 


as  a  comedian  himself,  the  locality  would  have  had  to  bear  it 
with   or   without   grinning. 

Bruce  Bairnsfather  was  born  at  Strawberry  Bank  Cottage  at 
Murree   in   the   Himalayas.    A   keen    desire   for   adventure   was 
with   him   from   the   beginning   of  his   career.    He   instinctively 
selected   for   his   birth   a   room   where   the   roof  leaked   in    five 
places.     Few   have  given  such  early  evidence   of   a   predilection 
for  '  roughing  it/  all  which  foreshadowed  the  Trenches,  as   any 
psychologist  might  detect.    Again,  in   his   second  year,  he  burst 
forth    along   the   line   of   least   resistance   and   took   his   mother 
away  from  Murree  to  Chungla  Gully.    There  has  never  been  a 
greater   devotion    to    a   parent   than    this.     It   beats    Sir   James 
Barrie's.     Off  he  went  in  a  '  dandy,'  a  sort  of  native   sedan-chair 
peculiar  to  his  mountain  environment.    Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
of  these  incidents    in  a   crowded  career  he  has  no  vivid  recol- 
lection ;    but  the  cholera  having  broken  out  in  their  midst,  he 
was  nothing   loath  to  play  the  hero  as  readily  as  a  true  strate- 
gist, and  retired  for  military  reasons.     At  Chungla  Gully  Bruce 
and   his    mother   lived   in    a   one-roomed    *  hut,'    again    a   fore- 
shadow of  the  Great  European  War,  where  he  was  to  occupy 
and    vacate    hurriedly   a   villa    known   as    Shrapnel    View — with 
shooting.    For  three  weeks  at  Chungla  Gully,  with  no  furniture 
save  a  bed,   table,   and  bucket,  abided    mother  and   son.    Then 
further  went  they  into  the  Gullies,  where  for  six  weeks  the  terrific 


FRAGMENTS 


struggle  for  existence  went  on,  and  only  by 
robbing  the  Government  mules  was  life  sus- 
tained. The  name  of  his  dwelling  was  Batungi 
Lodge.  His  hfe  up  to  then  was  full  of 
such  Indian  words. 

Though  in  an   Oriental    atmosphere 


and     speaking 
H  indus  t  ani 


better  than  Eng- 
lish,   there    is     no 
blot  on  his  copy-book, 
'##'i^  nothmg     to     cause     the 


blush  of  shame  to  mount  to 
the  most  expert  cheek.  Then 
back  to  India  again  :  to  Umballa, 
where  his  father  was  Cantonment 
Magistrate;  all  which  may  not  be 
important,  but  all  which  helped  to 
shape  the  exceptional  talent  which  has  become  a  factor  in 
the  present  European  fight.  Those  were  the  subtle  influences 
which  began  his  knowledge  of  life,  and  made  his  outlook 
a  wide  one.  Whence  came  Colonel  Chutney,  V.C.,  who,  desiring 
to  keep  in  touch  with  dug-out  life,  sleeps  while  home  on  short 
leave  in  the  cucumber  frames,  if  he  did  not  come  from  Umballa  ? 


And  there  he  also  during  these  seven  years,  accompanied  by  his 


24  FRAGMENTS 


father,  went  on  shooting  expeditions,  and  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  elephant  at  its  most  energetic  stage. 

When  the  parents  this  time  returned  to  India  they  left 
young  Bruce  behind  at  a  vicarage  far  from  towns.  Thornbury 
Vicarage,  near  Bromyard  in  Worcestershire,  was  a  discipline 
for  the  boy  from  which  he  could  not  get  away.  He  tells 
how  even  to-day  he  can't  read  a  passage  from  the  Bible 
without  hearing  the  bells  of  Thornbury  Church  tolling  him  to 
service.  The  place  got  on  his  nerves ;  and  that  which  gets  on 
our  nerves  is  discipHne,  and  generally  is  good  for  us.  Living 
that  submerged  life  he  was  disappointed  in  '  home '  at  first, 
but  at  length  learnt  there  to  love  the  country  and  to  develop  a 
dislike  of  society.  To  India  he  sent  sketches  of  his  parochial 
life,  thumbnail  snatches  of  humanity,  just  as  he  sent  back  to 
England  those  unpublished  impressions  of  trench-life  in  France, 
for  the  family  to  inspect,  more  accurate  and  living  than  any 
letters  could  be.  The  interest  in  all  these  childish  efforts  is 
the  marv^ellous  power  of  observation,  and  the  terse,  inexplicable 
manner  in  which  he  dressed  his  ideas  with  humour,  the  way 
a  salad  is  prepared  with  vinegar  and  oils.  Blunt  also,  but  any- 
thing which  is  true  is  like  a  blow  to  one  who  is  trained  by 
convention  to  think  untruthfully.  But  all  is  seen  humorously, 
never  in  bitterness,  never  hurtingly.  Yet  in  those  days,  as  now, 
he    wanted  to   be  merry.     What  normal   boy   does    not  ?     His 


A    FRAGMENT. 


FRAGMENTS 


27 


spirit  bubbled  up  like  the  air  in  a  cushion  :    pushed    down  in 
one  place,  it  came  up  in  another.    The  environment  could   not 
weight   him  exactly,   and   if  he   dare   not   draw   impressions   in 
Hymns   Ancient   and  Modern,    he  could    do   so  in  Mrs,  Beeton'^s 
Cookery  Book,  as  witness  that  busy  and  buxom  creature  sketched 
on   the   flyleaf    of    that   literary    lady's   contribution    to    la  joie 
de  vivre,   which   he   found   in  the   vicarage   kitchen.     He  didn't 
like  parties  in  England,  much  as  he   had  loved  them,  especially 
the   fancy-dress   ones,   at   Umballa.    But   he   learnt  to    love   the 
rural    parts,    to     study    its 
types  and  its    features.     In 
an  atmosphere  which  culti- 
vated self-consciousness,  he 
showed  no  sign   of   egoism 
then,   more    than    he    does 
to-day.    Remember,  though, 
it   was    the    cook    who    got 
his    tribute,    not   the    great 
lady  of   the   manor.     Sym- 
pathy   and    appetite    are    a 
strong  combination. 

And  once  he  sent  to 
India  a  picture  of  a  milk- 
maid !     Now  we  note  new 


Early  Da^'s  in  India 

BAIRNSFATHER'S 
CAMELRY. 


28  FRAGMENTS 


evidences.  Family  greatly  agitated.  He  was  at  this  time  8| 
years  old.  Precocity !  Forerunner  of  that  dreaming  soldier  in 
*  Fragments  '  who  had  the  *  bitter '  disappointment  of  finding 
both  barmaid  and  beverage  had  disappeared  on  waking.  And 
so,  soon  after,  this  buoyant  spirit — which  at  Thornbury  was 
like  a  kite  with  too  heavy  a  tail — was  wafted  away  to  school 
—to  'Westward  Ho!  College.'  See  Kipling's  'Stalky  &  Co.,' 
which  Bairnsfather  declares  got  absolutely  the  spirit  of  the 
school.  Here  we  find  the  usual  things  happening,  an  interest 
in  everything  which  interests  schoolmasters  not  at  all ;  a  gift 
for  caricature  which  was,  strange  to  say,  greatly  appreciated 
both  by  his  associates  and  instructors,  proof  of  real  good 
humour ;  at  games,  rotten ;  at  mechanical  devices,  expert ;  at 
entertaining  in  his  own  way,  by  drawing,  constantly  drawing, 
he  was  popular.  He  loved  his  school-days,  but  for  all  his  sense 
of  fun  and  the  melancholy  of  exile  at  Thornbury,  he  loved  the 
country  best,  and  longed  for  its  milkmaids,  its  cooks  ;  in  short 
its  '  types.'  From  Westward  Ho  !  he  went  to  Trinity  College, 
Stratford-on-Avon.  His  family  came  from  India  and  settled  in 
the  country  near  the  same  old  town;  so,  gradually  Bruce  was 
getting  more  and  more  at  home  in  England^  and  coming  more 
and  more  into  his  own. 


AS  HE  SAW  HIMSELF  IN  THE  UNIFORM 
OF  THE  WARWICKS. 


STUDENT  DAYS. 


SPECIMENS    OF    BAIRNSFATHER'S    EARLY    WORK. 


[To  face  p.  28 


THE    THIRD     FRAGMENT 


DAYS     OF     ADVENTURE 

AFTER  leaving  Trinity  College,  Bairnsfather  became  the 
victim  of  the  family  inheritances,  that  is  on  the  mar- 
tial side,  and  that  was,  in  his  case,  on  both  sides,  for 
he  sprang  from  stock  who  for  long  time  had  considered  the 
sword  far  mightier  than  the  pen ;  so  there  seemed  nothing  for 
him  to  do  but  still  maintain  the  family  prejudices.  He  there- 
fore passed  the  Army  qualifying  examinations,  and  after  under- 
going a  certain  amount  of  training  with  the  Warwickshire 
Special  Reserve,  he  was  attached  to  his  father's  old  regiment, 
the  Cheshires,  and  went  to  Lichfield,  where  his  life  mainly 
consisted  of  bayonet  practice  with  a  sergeant.  After  a  little 
time  spent  at  lunging  about  trying  to  puncture  the  alert 
N.C.O.,  the  whole  circus  migrated  to  Aldershot  and  more 
time  passed  with  drilling  all  over  that  area,  till  at  length 
fed-upedness  hit  him  so  hard  that  he  decided  to  take  up 
engineering.  It  was  a  practical  thing,  and  while  not  greatly 
appealing  to  him,  it  held  out    the    inducement    of   opportunities 

81 


32  FRAGMENTS 


for  drawing,  which  the  Army  in  peace  time  did  not  offer. 
It  was  while  wandering  up  and  down  the  country  in  the 
employ  of  an  engineering  firm,  that  he  prosecuted  his  quest  of 
*  the  type '  in  music  hall  and  byway  from  Wigan  to  Cardiff,  jiust 
as  later  he  sought  it  along  the  Johnson-pitted  roads  of  France. 
Back  to  Warwickshire  for  an  interval  of  sketching  and  drawing, 
then  he  would  hit  the  highway  again,  always  studying,  always 
engrossed  in  those  who  had  succeeded  with  brush  or  pencil, 
getting  into  the  depths  of  his  subject  as  deeply  as  he  was  able, 
and  cultivating  that  spontaneous  technique  which  was  to  give  his 
work  its  directness  and  vitaUty,  all  which  things  in  this  case 
the  conventions  of  the  Peace  Army  would  have  stifled.  Engineer- 
ing was  a  stepping-stone  for  him :  his  energy  and  sympathy  did 
the  rest.  None  of  the  art  work  he  did  during  this  long  period 
of  appHcation  to  his  pencil  and  his  type  was  what  might  be 
called  for  concert  purposes.  Yet  they  were  of  the  same  nature 
and  led  to  the  same  end  as  the  ceaseless  piano  practice  which 
makes  the  virtuoso.  By  sketching  on  theatre  programmes,  pro- 
ducing amateur  pantomimes,  in  saimtering  through  slums,  in 
dining  at  great  houses,  in  analysing  absorbingly  the  works  of 
Forain,  Georges  Scott,  Fabiano,  Barribal,  Tom  Browne,  Herou- 
ard  and  the  rest,  he  kept  in  touch  with  his  own  talent  so  com- 
pletely as  to  give  us  that  unique  thing — a  humorist  of  the  first 
order  amid  the  tragedy  of  war. 


'•-^v?**^.- 


-A  ■•-  "■ 


T>v 


''•I 


IS-  - 


THE  TAUNT. 

AND  WHO  WAS  IT  SAT  ON  A  GOLF  BALL  FOR  THREE  WEEKS?" 

33 


FRAGMENTS    FROM    CAPTAIN    BAIRNSFATHER'S   SKETCH    BOOK. 

34 


FRAGMENTS 


35 


And  so,  once  upon  a  time,  in  that  spirit  of  adventure  and  with  the 
now  well-known  humorous  method  of  attack,  Bairnsfather  took  a 
voyage  across 
the  Atlantic. 
During  his 
engineering 
period  an  oc- 
casion arose 
for  some  work 
to  be  done  in 
Newfound- 
land. No  one 
else  in  the 
firm  seemed 
keen  to  go, 
but  the  pro- 
ject appealed 
strongly  to 
him.  He  im- 
mediately had 
visio  ns  of 
docks,  forests, 
fishermen  —  in 
shorty    adven-  the  birth  of  '  fragments; 


36  FRAGMENTS 


ture,  and  was  all  on  for  it.  So,  armed  with  tools  and  instruments,  he 
proceeded  to  Liverpool,  determined  to  see  the  New  World,  or  at 
least  re-discover  it.  All  problems  for  him  have  ever  been  solved 
by  laughter — so  he  faced  with  grinning  determination  the  ugly 
business  of  sea-sickness,  that  bane  of  the  temperamental,  for 
there  is  no  surer  sign  of  artistic  gifts  and  great  imagination  than  a 
proneness  to  be  abnormal  on  the  ocean  wave.  To  Bairnsfather 
trench  life  is  a  Bacchic  festival  compared  with  one  hour  at  sea.  So 
it  was  scarcely  with  a  light  heart  or  a  steady  head  that  he  set  out 
on  an  Allan  liner  for  Newfoundland.  Prospects  were  grim,  to  say 
the  least,  and  had  he  known  how  the  voyage  was  to  be  pro- 
tracted by  the  presence  of  icebergs  and  rough  weather,  which 
brought  to  his  lively  fancy  vivid  ever-moving  films  of  the  then 
recent  Titanic  calamity,  he  might  have  thought  a  third  time 
before  setting  sail  from  Liverpool.  But  there  is  no  turn- 
ing back  in  a  sea-trip,  any  more  than  from  the  tracks  of  Time, 
so  he  lazed  and  qualmed  and  retched  till  he  reached  St.  John's, 
on  one  of  those  slimy,  slippery,  foggy  mornings,  when  there 
isn't  any  good  in  any  of  us.  Here  he  searched  around  for 
petrol,  and  soon  started  on  his  two  days'  jaunt  by  road 
to  Spruce  Brook,  near  Port  Baques.  Under  normal  circum- 
stances Spruce  Brook  would  have  meant  a  world  of  wild  and 
woolly  adventure  to  his  mind,  but  under  the  ever-present 
conditions   of  slush  he   was  dampened    to    the  marrow,  as  one 


MORE   FRAGMENTS    FROM    BAIRNSFATHER'S    SKETCH    BOOK. 


[To  face  p.  37 


FRAGMENTS  37 


who    leaves  hope  outside  with   his   umbrella  when  he    entereth 
in. 

Very  little  of  the  alluringly  artistic  happened  at  Spruce 
Brook.  While  there  he  explored  the  fastness  and  did  his  job, 
for  he  went  out  to  fit  up  a  lighting  plant  of  some  sort  at  an 
hotel  known  as  The  Log  Cahin^  which  was  not  an  hotel  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  but  a  lodge  in  a  vast  wilderness 
designed  to  accommodate  those  who  might  care  to  hunt  big 
game  :  but  all  the  big  game  he  found  there  was  solitude,  and 
that  proved  a  case  of  the  fox  hunting  the  hound,  for  it  pursued 
him  with  home-sickness.  He  longed  for  his  studio  in  Warwick- 
shire, his  nights  at  Wigan,  and  the  lights  of  the  Empire  and 
his  types.  The  one  outstanding  drawing  perpetrated  at  The  Log 
Cabin  was  a  luggage  label  for  that  hostelry,  showing  it  to  be 
far  from  the  crowd,  with  nothing  for  society  but  a  mur- 
muring pine  and  a  moose.  The  label  is  effective,  a  log  cabin 
house,  some  pine  trees  and  a  deer's  head,  and  all  apparently  ten 
thousand  miles  from  a  piece  of  elastic.  It  must,  though,  have 
served  as  a  good  advertising  decoy  for  any  one  who  wanted  to 
cultivate  that  sort  of  solitude.  But  to  a  man  who  liked  towns 
there  could  only  be  one  word,  the  American  one :  '  Gee ! ' 
Bairnsfather  did  like  it — for  a  time — but  he  did  not  find  it  a 
wrench  to  break  away  from  its  fatal  fascinations ;  and  his  busi- 
ness there  accomplished,  he  was  back  in  St.  John's. 


38  FRAGMENTS 


Precarious  is  the  shipping  service  in  that  dangerous  part  of 
the  coast,  and  he  was  obHged  to  wait  for  his  boat,  and  spent 
his  time  studying  the  old  Newfoundland  town,  always  sketching, 
busily  sketching.  He  got  to  know  the  fisher-folk  and  listened 
to  their  yarns.  Everybody  seemed  engaged  in  fishing  there. 
There  was  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  fish,  catching  or  not  catch- 
ing, as  the  case  may  be.  Cod  was  the  one  theme  of  the  com- 
munity ;  and  here  codding — that  trick  of  poking  fun  and  joking 
at  which  Bairnsfather  was  always  so  adept — took  on  a  more  serious 
aspect  in  the  form  of  fish — and  fish  and  ever  more  fish.  It  was 
the  topic  and  tonic  of  the  natives.  The  very  mattresses  seemed 
stuffed  with  cod.  Cod  was  the  parson's  text  and  the  doctor's 
remedy.  At  meals  his  was  all  cod  :  fried  cod,  boiled  cod,  cod 
cakes,  cod  chowder,  and  just  cod.  He  did  not  get  so  filled  up 
with  his  fisher  friends  and  the  hale  and  hearty  folk  of  St.  John's 
and  their  manners  and  customs  and  lore,  as  with  their  cod ; 
and  so,  weary  of  waiting  for  his  boat,  which  was  probably 
tangled  up  somewhere  in  icebergs  and  fogs,  and  not  finding 
great  scope  for  open-mindedness,  grace  and  cheerfulness,  he 
arranged  to  get  home  or  bust,  on  a  species  of  tramp  ship, 
which  carried  besides  only  a  cargo  of  wood,  pulp  and  lobsters, 
and  as  he  felt  like  all  three  of  these  commodities,  he 
risked  the  ordeal,  and  said  farewell  to  St.  John's.  It  was  a 
boat  that  had   made  many  crossings.    Having  been  informed  of 


FRAGMENTS 


41 


Bairnsfather's  fondness  for  the  sea,  we  can  appreciate  the  more 
his  untoward  sympathy  with  the  bad  sailor  in  the  Bystander 
cartoon,  where  his  pure  and  brotherly  feeling  for  the  dis- 
comfited victims  of  the  wave  is  so  touchingly  depicted ; 
and  we  can  easily  imagine  his  cold  shivers  when  he  found 
that  his  berth  on  this  shifting  tramp  was 
just  over  the  propeller.  It  was  like  sleep- 
ing in  Big  Ben  for  ten  days.  To  him  it 
was  not  so  much  like  beginning  existence 
over  again  as  living  the  hereafter  in 
advance.  When  able,  he  constituted  him- 
self the  life  of  the  ship — a  drawing-room 
entertainer  afloat — and  became  the  pet  of 
the  crew,  by  making  sketches  of  them  from 
various  angles  of  their  daily  routine,  and 
distributing  his  drawings  like  tracts.  And 
while  he  sat  on  bales  of  pulp  h  la  Jacobs, 
watching  the  cook  peel  potatoes,  he  thought 
how  the  County  at  home  around  its  comfortable  '  seven  coursers ' 
envied  him  his  '  yachting  experience  '  ! 

At  last  the  coast  of  Ireland  hove  into  view.  We  shall 
not  dwell  longer  on  the  incidents  of  the  sea.  The  hesita- 
ting ship :  the  near  horizon :  the  far-off  glimpse  of  home  : 
the  light  in  the  window.    Limp    by  limp  the  vessel  waged  its 


EARLY  SKETCH  OF  '  BILL.' 

A  familiar  feature  of  many  of  the 
'  Fragments-' 


42  FRAGMENTS 


heavy  bulk  against  the  offending  tide,   till  at  length  the  Irish 
Sea  clasped  a  million   lobsters  in  its  salty  arms.    Steady  the  old 
rusty  tramp  took  its  way  for  Liverpool,  and  Bairns  father,  like  a  ship- 
wrecked hero,  waited  on  deck,  in  pyjamas,  for  home  and  beauty. 
No  man  kisses  his  native  soil  with    the  same  gratitude  and 
patriotism    as    the    man  who    can't   help    being    sea-sick.      Sea- 
sickness might  even  be  found,  in  some  deeply  thinking  Teutonic 
mind,    to    be    the    origin   of  patriotism — the    beginning   of   na- 
tionality— the    love    of    Fatherland    and    Mother    Earth.      It    is 
easily   understandable !     And     no    man    ever    felt    this    emotion 
more  fundamentally  than   Bairnsfather.    All  which,   as   any  one 
can  see,  makes  England  to  him  a  land  specially  worth  fighting 
for,    and    accounts    perhaps    for   his    patriotic    presence    in    the 
Trenches,  where  he  recognized  that  there  is  another  elementary 
illness  quite  as  harrowing  as  sea-sickness,  namely,  land-sickness. 
Do  these  fighting  men  ever  need  a  doctor  ?    *  No,'  he  said  to 
himself;    'laughter   is   the   physic   of  hard   lines.'    So   he   gave 
them  laughter.    Nothing  can  purify  like  laughter,  and  above  all 
laughter  at  one's    self;    for  to   see    himself  humorously  is   the 
greatest  purifier  a  man  can    have.    To  be  held  up  to  ridicule 
does   not   cleanse.    Wit,   as   society   plays   practise   it,   is   of  no 
physical  or  social  value ;    but  humour,  a  good-natured  sympa- 
thetic joking  with  a  man,  lifts  him  out  of  the  dumps — and  the 
Slough    of    Despond.      Just    as    he   cheered    the   crew  on    the 


FRAGMENTS 


43 


Battered  Nancy  labouring  under  the  burden  of  pulp  and  lob- 
sters, so  has  Baimsfather  given  stimulus  to  the  men  in  France, 
making  them  forget  their  home-longing  by  showing  them  them- 
selves at  home  in  the  Trenches  :  by  helping  their  spirits  to 
shape  so  that  their  bodies  may  continue  equal  to  their  burdens. 
At  the  same  time  he  has  visualized  the  war  for  us  in  England. 
The  only  way  he  can  be  repaid  is  for  some  cartoonist  to  find 
a  similar  jocular  cure  for  sea-sickness. 

The  strangeness  of  life,  the  vigour  of  hope,  the  immortality 
of  good  spirits  among  men,  the  vagary  of  careers,  the  good  in 
all  of  us — these  are  the  Bairnsfather  themes.  He  has  raised 
pluck  to  a  virtue,  and  a  golden  text.  The  soldier  speaks  for 
him  and  tells  you  this  fact  wherever  you  meet  him  and  talk  to 
him  of  Bairnsfather. 

And  yet  while  not  in  any  sense  have  his  days  been  exciting 
ones,  there  is  a  kind  of  thrill  in  them — the  thrill  of  uncertainty 
existing  in  all  who  live  by  their 
gifts,  which  is  another  way  of 
living  by  what  is  known  as 
one's  wits,  in  the  lives  of  all 
who  give  strength  to  others  by 
means  of  their  sympathy  and 
imagination. 

Imagine    our    soldier 


44  FRAGMENTS 


philosopher  in  Plug  Street,  somewhere  in  France,  just  a  little 
while  ago  part  of  a  cargo  of  lobsters  on  the  Atlantic,  and  next 
year,  perhaps,  reading  the  lessons  in  St.  Paul's.  One  never  knows, 
and  that  is  what  makes  life  fascinating  to  Bairnsfather,  and  mean- 
while he  says  :  '  Let's  be  merry.'    And  we  are. 

'  I  am  afraid  the  great  legitimate  actors,  whom  I  admire  so 
much,  could  not  have  taught  me  the  frontal  attack  of  Life  so 
well  as  those  fearless  comedians  of  the  Halls,'  he  said  briefly, 
when  I  asked  him  if  any  of  his  music-hall  investigations  had 
stood  him  in  stead  as  a  soldier.  The  way  they  butt  up  against 
an  audience  takes  courage  of  no  ordinary  sort.  You  may  shake 
off  a  bulldog  if  you  shake  long  enough,  but  you  can't  get  free 
from  the  determined  and  experienced  comedian  whose  living  is 
dependent  upon  making  you  relax  your  face,  because  it's  the 
comedian  who  is  doing  the  shaking,  *  Your  laughter  or  your 
life '  is  the  threat  which  makes  his  success.  Fighting  requires 
much  the  same  method.  Amid  these  comics,  low  and  high, 
Bairnsfather  found  his  lessons,  so  far  as  the  war  was  concerned; 
so  he  turned  them  to  good  purpose  in  the  cause  of  Old  England. 


/ 


lAyyjjt^;.  S  'mA'- 


'ALT,    'OO    GOES    THERE?' 


'[To  face  p.  44 


THE    FOURTH    FRAGMENT 


BAIRNSFATHER    AS     A     FRAGMENT     IN 

FRANCE 

THE  outbreak  of  the  great  war  found  Bruce  BairnsfaAer^ 
with  hundreds  and  thousands  of  his  class  and  temperament 
immediately  at  the  post  of  duty.  Naturally,  it  was  to  his 
old  regiment  that  he  reverted.  After  a  short  time  at  a  mobiliza- 
tion station,  Bairnsfather  left  Southampton  for  the  port  of  Havre 
almost  before  he  knew  what  had  happened,  on  a  ship 
crowded  with  troops.  Those  were  great  days.  Nothing  thrills 
in  the  same  way  as  uncertainty  and  determination  backed 
up  by  a  wrong  to  right.  He  tells  now  of  two  glad  nights 
in  Havre,  which  many  thought  would  be  their  last  plunge  into 
the  delights  of  this  world,  judging  from  the  news  which  filtered 
through.  While  in  England,  to  those  favoured  few  who  went 
first  into  the  slush,  broil  and  conflict  of  the  thing,  the  spirit  of 
knight-errantry,  and  a  sober  sense  of  duty  had  impressed  them 

47 


48  FRAGMENTS 


with  almost  religious  intention.  At  Havre  they  heard  the  note 
of  honest  adventure  being  sounded  with  contrasting  fanfare  and 
all  the  accustomed  atmosphere  of  a  military  nation.  Pell-mell  was 
in  the  air,  making  a  harmony  of  discordant  elements.  It,  too, 
was  a  spirit  derived  from  things  we  imagined  in  our  poor  know- 
ledge of  manners  and  men  were  long  dead.  Havre  presented  a 
scene  which  the  elder  Dumas  would  have  loved  and  which  only 
he  could  describe,  with  its  sweeping  colour,  its  mystery,  its  subtle 
interplay  of  human  passion,  patriotism,  excitement,  indignation  and 
awe.  It  was  a  soldiers'  town,  peopled  by  soldier  souls.  Cafes 
were  like  bee-hives ;  the  streets  swarmed  with  women  of  all  sorts, 
all  keen,  tumultuously  keen — d,  has  les  Boches  I  Only  patriotic  airs 
sounded  from  the  orchestras  in  the  cafes,  only  patriotic  songs 
were  to  be  heard  being  sung  above  the  din  and  confusion  of  the 
street  traffic.  The  men  in  regimental  equipment  walked  with  the 
tread  of  soldiers.  It  was  France,  the  old  France,  the  fascinating, 
always  alluring  France,  and  the  spirit  of  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires 
dominated  the  French  world.  Chivalry  was  also  awake  there  in  a 
more  martial  if  not  a  less  religious  form  than  in  England.  And 
there  they  were,  those  among  the  first  British  who  went  forth, 
having  two  glad  nights  in  Havre,  thoroughly  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  these  two  glad  nights  might  be  their  last  on  this  good,  kind 
earth.  Bairnsfather,  en  route  to  '  Somewhere,'  noted  these  things 
and  saw  the  irony,  tragedy,  and  heroic  fun  of  the  situation  of 


FRAGMENTS  49 


which  he  was  part  and  parcel.  This  was  the  love  of  adventure 
which  all  his  life  he  had  longed  to  satisfy ;  which  he  had  loved 
to  read  about  in  old  books.  From  Havre  to  Rouen  !  in  Summer 
a  tender  scene,  with  timid  and  caressing  green,  for  no  green 
grows  old  like  the  green  of  apple  tree  leaves  in  Normandy,  singing 
themselves  to  silver ;  in  Autumn  a  scene  red  as  blood  and  yellow 
as  gold  and  as  gentle  as  moss  in  those  famed  forests ;  in  War,  a 
scene  brave  with  hurrying  men  from  hamlet  and  farm,  with 
churches  busy  with  prayer  and  only  silent  where  grass  grows 
over   graves. 

At  Rouen  Baimsfather  secured  a  passport,  which  provided 
for  his  being  dumped  at  a  siding  in  Flanders ;  and  from  there 
he  went  straight  into  the  Trenches.  The  Trenches  !  And  this 
was  the  Garden  of  Europe  !  It  is  hard  to  imagine  what  he 
felt  when  he  '  took  to  the  mud.'  For  dreariness  and  darkness 
and  slush  and  water,  this  particular  Trench  was  the  cesspool  of 
the  world :  a  world  steeped  in  dereliction,  dank  and  despair. 
There  was  the  close  unfriendly  contact  with  Death.  There  was 
the  penetrating  greyness,  the  ugly  aroma  of  stagnation  and 
depression.  And  this  was  the  horror  which  men  out  there 
actually  got  used  to,  and  in  which  Bairnsfather  saw  so  much  to 
make   them   laugh. 

He  was  billeted  on  a  farm,  a  type  with  which  his  drawings 
have  made  us   familiar.    He  was   too   much   occupied   with   the 


50  FRAGMENTS 

business  of  war  to  think  anything  about  drawing,  although  that 
impulse  had  always  been  a  chief  one  in  his  life  from  his  earliest 
youth.     Besides  the  monotonous  or  exciting  routine,  as  the  case 

may  be,  of  the  day,  there  was  little  in  the 
rotten  turnip  field  in  which  he  was  planted 
to  rouse  an  inspiration.  Some  three  months 
passed  before  he  could  draw  any  pictures, 
and  then  he  only  sketched  incidents  on 
i^  '^  •^1  scraps  of  paper  and  sent  them  along  the 

Trench  to   amuse  and  cheer  the  men,  or 

,,.—^^—  sent  them  in  lieu  of  letters  to  friends  at 

\1 1  w7  home.     He  drew   cartoons  of  a   sort  on 

M^)L/  the   walls   of  the    farmhouse,   and   these 

^^O^i^  ^^^- -  pleased  his  companions  mightily.    All  this 

dismalness   was    before    any    pronounced 

organization    had    taken    place,   and    the 

^         ^  _^  horrid  primitiveness  of  the  conditions  of 

(  ^^  life  I  then    revolted    far   more    than   they 

Xi^Ml  attracted  him.    It  was  a  grey  world  :  there 

^^  was  grumbling  at  everything— except  the 

C_^^  glorious  fact  that  they  were  out  to  '  do  ' 

^  "^  the  enemy.    The  guns  never  ceased  their 

'^'^^^  convincing  argument  night  or  day.    There 

was  no  hate,  no  bitterness  among  the  men. 


OLD   BILL  IN  TROUBLE. 


FRAGMENTS 


51 


They  were  all  fine  fellows  at  bottom.  At  length  even  their 
grumbhng  \  became  picturesque  to  Bairnsfather  :  later  it  became 
humorous,  and  in  the  end  excruciatingly  funny,  because  he 
saw  what  kept  them  at  it  steady  and  certain  :  their  courage- 
ous determination 


and  gallantry.  To 
him  finally  they  were 
War  Jesters.  They 
sewed  clumsily,  but 
wittily,  they  ragged 
wittily,  they  snored 
wittily,  they  cooked 
wittily  ;  if  they  hated 
the  enemy  at  all,  they 
hated  him   wittily. 

*  Hate,'    he    declares, 

*  varies  inversely  with 
the  square  of  the  dis- 
tance from  the  Front.' 
And  these  men,  who 
at  first  appeared  to 
him  in  this  age  of 
civilization  as  a  kind 
of  aggravated    savage 


BERT  IN  DIFFICULTIES. 


52 


FRAGMENTS 


a 


A 


'4. 


u 


conducting  a  troglodyte  war  with  less  than  the  dignity  of 
moles^  all  brought  back  to  Nature  with  a  thud,  suddenly 
struck  him  as  getting  the  very  best  out  of  such  a  life  as  they 
were  obliged  to  live  there.  They  were  getting,  in  spite  of  cir- 
cumstances,   in    spite    of    death    and     appalling     sadness,     fun 

out  of  '  the  whole  blooming  busi- 
ness.' And  while  he  felt  sorry  for 
the  real  fellow — the  bloke  who  has 
to  stick  it  out — he  got  much  satis- 
faction from  the  fact  that  there  was 
many  a  hearty  laugh  left  in  those 
tried  and  courageous  breasts.  That 
the  enemy  had  wilfully  flung  the 
world  back  into  primitive  condi- 
tions tended  to  embitter  some  of 
the  men,  but  not  for  long,  not  at 
any  rate  while  there  was  anything 
to  make  them  laugh.  So  months  and 
months  of  mud  and  bully  beef  were 
grumbled  through  good-naturedly  :  and  then  they  were  moved 
from  trench  to  trench,  all  revolting  to  any  one  with  an  imagina- 
tion at  all.  And  during  this  migrating  period,  when  hardships  often 
became  more  than  could  be  humanly  borne,  Baimsfather  noted  the 
fearful  struggle  with  self  which  each  of  these  men  was  fighting. 


•IN   MUFTI': 
A  bit  of  Bairnsfather  that  suggests 
Phil  May. 


A  FRIEND  OF  THE  ARTIST  HAVING  COMPOSED  A  BANJO  MARCH,  PLAYED  IT  TO  BAIRNS- 
FATHER,  WHO  DESCRIBED  IT  AS  A  ZULUS  NIGHTMARE,  AND  WHEN  CHALLENGED  TO  PRODUCE 
A  COVER  FOR  THE  MARCH,  PROMPTLY  REPLIED  WITH  THIS  SKETCH.  IT  WAS  ADOPTED— WITH 
WHAT  RESULT  TO  THE  SALES  IS  NOT  RECORDED- 

[To  face  page  53. 


FRAGMENTS 


53 


All  were  enduring  the  same,  and  this  common  battle  within  each 
had  produced  a  comradeship  among  them  which  was  almost 
beautiful  and  invariably  expressed  itself  in  jest,  in  laughter; 
and  when  things  seemed  to  have  touched  rock  bottom,  misery 
some  way  found  out  its  fellows  and  so  came  the  pearl  from 
the   diseased  oyster,   the  priceless   pearl  of  fun. 

Bairnsfather  describes  those  long  days  in  the  Trenches  as 
more  harrowing  and  devitalizing  than  any  great  offensive  could 
possibly  be.  To  any  one  with  a  particle  of  imagination  they 
were  the  limitless  limit,  like  an  endless  succession  of  funerals 
where  you  are  both  corpse  and  mourner.  There's — so — much — 
time — to — think  !  There  you  are,  day  in,  day  out,  gnawed  by  sus- 
pense and  monotony,  hanging  in  mid-air,  as  it  were,  between 
sky  and  earth,  with  Heaven  as  a  possibility  and  War  as  a  cer- 
tainty. The  curious  restlessness  it  all  produced,  like  wanting  to 
scratch  and  having  no  place  to  scratch.  In  your  resignation  you 
find  humour. 

It  is  said  that  at  his  last  moment  a  drowning 
man  lives  his  whole  life  over  in  a  flash  like  a  vivid 
film  before  the  mind.  In  the  Trenches  one  lives 
one's  life  over  every  minute  in  the  day  and  night. 
Truly  they  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait. 
The  absolute  soldier — the  absolute  callousness — the 
absolute  hopelessness — why  not  laugh  ?     It  is  not 


54  FRAGMENTS 


only  a  philosophical  kismet,  it  is  the  British  birthright.  And 
those  who  have  had  the  nastiest  experiences  laugh  the  most  at 
the  Bairnsfather  cartoons.  That  a  hopeless  predicament  can  be 
pathetically  funny  he  has  proved  to  us — as  no  other  man  of  his 
time  or  any  time  has  yet  done.  Such  is  the  psychology  of 
humour  in  the  Trenches,  and,  in  fact,  the  whole  psychology  of 
the  British  soldier.  It  was  the  war  which  revealed  these  men  to 
themselves.  Why,  to  stare  at  a  dead  cow  from  a  dangerous 
*  parapet '  for  consecutive  months  must  become  funny.  The  cow, 
with  legs  sticking  up  like  a  four-poster,  had  so  little  concern 
for  the  diplomatic  affairs  in  the  Balkans,  and  yet,  what  a  real 
thing  War  had  been  to  that  cow! 

So  Bairnsfather,  after  months  of  slime  and  grime,  came  to 
the  conclusions  which  resulted  in  his  drawing  his  first  picture, 
and  the  manner  and  consequences  of  its  reception  in  London  are 
subjects  of  a  following  chapter. 

The  War,  as  well  as  the  conditions  of  life  it  created,  were 
getting  worse  and  worse,  for  the  battahon  was  moved  into  the 
Ypres  salient,  and  here  in  the  second  battle  of  Ypres  our  Cap- 
tain came  very  near  cracking  the  joke  of  his  life.  It's  not  a 
long  story,  and  runs  in  this  wise.  They  had  entered  the  struggle 
about  four  in  the  morning.  An  awful  din  filled  the  air, 
deafening  and  choking.  The  atmosphere  was  venomous  with 
bullets ;     bodies    of   the    dead    everywhere ;     Ypres    a    mass    of 


\. 


\ 


\ 


0  'H 


THE   GENESIS   OF   A  'FRAGMENT.' 
55 


'  FRAGMENTS 


57 


yellow  flame ;  the  world  clutched  by  the  throat  was  staggering 
and  finding  it  hard  to  breathe.  So  was  it  when  the  dawn 
broke  with  stern  greyness,  bringing  no  light  to  that  smoke- 
driven  country.  Bairnsfather  was  doing  no  more  than  every 
man  was  doing  at  that  moment,  and  they  were  all  doing  every- 
thing in  their  power  to  do  their  duty.  He  was  in  charge  of 
machine  guns  as  usual.  Two  in  one 
place,  two  in  another  position  on  a  hill. 
He  must  run  frequently  between  these. 
With  dawn  the  attack  began— down  in  an 
expanse  of  field  facing  the  Germans,  one 
of  those  Hell  rehearsals  which  no  pen 
can  describe.  He  was  hurrying  along 
the  moat  of  a  farm  when  a  Canadian 
officer  dashed  by  him,  obviously  carrying 
a  message.  Bullets  were  falling  like  green 
fruit  from  an  apple  tree  in  a  tornado. 
About  fifty  yards  on  Bairnsfather  saw 
the  Canadian  collapse  in  a  heap.  He  didn't  move.  The  battle 
had  come  to  a  standstill  for  a  moment,  although  the  machine 
guns  were  busy ;  the  world,  exhausted  and  sore,  seemed  taking 
a  deep  breath.  On  the  farm  behind,  the  bullets  were  falling 
through  the  roof  about  two  a  minute.  There  was  a  strange, 
unearthly  calm    over   everything,   mocked  only  by  the   machine 


58  FRAGMENTS 


guns.  Bairnsfather  ran  out  to  where  he  had  seen  the  officer 
fall.  It  was  not  an  action  of  any  risk.  It  was  what 
any  one  would  have  done  in  like  circumstances.  It  was 
what  everybody  was  doing  on  all  sides.  It  was  the  higher 
development  of  that  camaraderie  which  produces  humour  and 
at  length  reduces  the  Army  and  at  the  same  time  lifts  it  to 
the  simple  term  Man.  He  tried  to  drag  the  Canadian  to  a 
safer  ditch,  but  finding  such  a  tug  beyond  him,  he  cut 
off  the  equipment  and  cut  the  clothes  to  make  sure  just  what 
had  happened.  A  bullet  had  entered  under  the  fellow's  right 
arm  and  had  come  out  on  the  left  side  of  his  chest.  There 
was  the  gurgling  noise — worse  to  hear  than  all  the  perdition  of 
a  great  offensive ;  there  was  the  pale  greenish  colour  in  the 
face.  A  gunner  was  hailed  and  told  to  throw  a  water-bottle 
over.  The  gunner.  Mills  by  name,  '  an  excellent  chap,'  came 
himself.  The  wounded  soldier  was  propped  up  and  left  in 
Mills'  care  while  Bairnsfather  ran  back  to  the  farm  for  a 
stretcher.  There  he  found  the  house  crowded  with  wounded. 
He  spoke  with  a  Canadian  colonel,  to  whom  he  gave  the  papers 
taken  from  the  officer.  Could  he  have  a  stretcher  ?  Certainly  ! 
A  young  lieutenant  was  ordered  to  accompany  him  back.  They 
returned  along  the  edge  of  the  moat  to  avoid  machine  gun  fire. 
The  wounded  man  on  the  stretcher  was  at  length  got  to  the 
farmhouse,  where  all  was  an  agony  of  confusion.  It  was  all  so 
easy  to  do,  this  kind  of  thing,   when  everybody  else  was  doing 


FRAGMENTS 


59 


it.  The  sensations  of  war  were  to  him  at  once  so  terrible  and 
so  simple,  so  sad,  so  ironical.  Then  Baimsfather  got  back  to 
his  job,  dead  beat.  It  was  by  this  5.30  a.m.  He  started  along 
the  front  of  the  farm  by  the  side  of  a  ditch  which  went  out 
on  to  the  Fortuin  Road,  and  when  he  had  gone  about  forty 
yards  one  of  the  shells  aimed  at  the  farm  exploded  right  along- 
side him.  He  was  knocked  down  and  lay  for  some  time 
absolutely  done  in,  but  managed  to  drag  himself  by  a  double 
row  of  dead  men,  relics  of  previous  fighting,  got  some  water, 
and  was  helped  by  an  orderly  to  a  dressing  station  at  St.  Jean. 
And  so  that  grey  dawn  had  turned  to  a  grey  noon ;  and  such 
is  the  day's  work  every  man  does  at  the  Front ;  where,  before  and 
after  such  bickerings,  every  man  who  can  laugh  becomes  more 
and  more  the  captain  of  his  own  soul.  Such  is  the  psychology  of 
the  Trenches  ;  for  Laughter  is  the  invigorating  handmaid  of  Pluck. 


X 


MORE    FRAGMENTS    FROM 
BAIRNSFATHER'S    SKETCH    BOOK. 


IT.  t' 


[To  face'J).  60 


THE    FIFTH    FRAGMENT 


DAYS    OF    DISCOVERY 

FOR  a  man  engaged  in  the  Great  Adventure  of  War,  in 
prospect  of  winning  undying  fame  on  the  battlefield, 
the  mere  honours  of  publicity  in  so  minor  a  thing 
as  Art  may  seem  to  the  romantic-minded  civilian  to  be  of  a 
paltry  kind.  To  the  unromantic-minded  soldier,  it  is  otherwise. 
The  honours  of  the  battlefield  may  come,  or  probably  may 
not  come,  in  the  day's  march,  and  may  be  enjoyed  either  in 
this  world  or  the  next,  or  on  the  border  line  between  both.  It 
has  been  said  by  cynics  that  the  soldier  in  modern  war  cares  little 
or  nothing  about  the  honours  in  question,  and  that  if  he  has 
any  feeling  for  them  it  is  rather  one  of  distrust.  This  is  not  alto- 
gether true.  Still,  it  does  often  happen  that  the  hero  of  the 
picture  papers  is  not  at  all  the  hero  of  the  trenches,  and  the  deed 
not  the  one  which  Tommy  himself  would  have  selected  for  honour. 
Tommy  is  too  much  Tommy  to  regard  war  in  any  romantic  light 
at  all,  and  the  thoughts  of  Tommy  in  the  trenches  or  thereabouts 

63 


64  FRAGMENTS 


are  thoughts  mostly  of  home.  If  Tommy  is  ambitious,  it  is 
likely  to  be  in  directions  aprh  la  guerre.  Therefore,  should  any- 
thing written  or  sketched  by  Tommy  find  its  way  into  print 
at  home,  may  it  be  said  the  day  of  its  appearance  is  a  greater 
day  in  his  life  than  the  day  on  which  he  may  have  achieved 
some  unrecorded  glory  at  the  Front?  Viewed  in  this  light,  the 
storming  of  the  ramparts  of  London  picture- journalism  by 
Baimsfather  of  the  Warwicks  is  an  achievement  of  which  the 
Army  at  the  Front  is  at  least  as  proud  as  it  would  have 
been  of  his  storming  of,  say.  Dead-pig  Farm  in  the  battle  of 
Vin  Ordinaire,  and  the  story  of  how  it  came  to  be  may  rank 
high  in  any  future  record  of  *  Great  Deeds  of  the  Great  War.'  It 
is,  at  all  events,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  feats  in  the  whole 
history  of  journalism  for  a  completely  unknown  man  to  have 
won  for  his  own  talent  so  instantaneous  a  recognition,  and  such 
universal  approbation. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  Bairnsfather  had  a  sketching 
habit,  for  which  throughout  his  school  and  professional  days  he 
was  known  to  his  friends.  Also,  those  friends  doubtless  foresaw 
that  perhaps  one  day  he  might  find  his  way  into  print  as  some 
sort  of  a  comic  humorist.  They  did  not  foresee  that  a  Great 
War  would  have  to  happen  first,  and  that  his  arrival  in  print 
would  be  the  result  of  a  bomb   explosion. 

One  of  the  most  painfully  familiar  of  all  situations  at  the 


/ 


■^6 


THE    LAST    STRAW. 

*  Let's  see  ;  it  would  be  this  time  last  week  I  was  dining  at   Pagani's  with  dear  old 

Voice  from  the  Shadows  :    '  There's  only    bully    to-night,  sir.     They  aren't  giving  us 
this  time,  but  there's  plenty  of  biscuits  if  the  water  'asn't  got  to  'em.' 


bread 


\To  jate  p.  65 


FRAGMENTS  65 


Front  is  that  in  which  a  quiet  and  dismal  little  party  in  a  dug- 
out are  shaken  out  of  their  seven  senses  by  something  hurtling 
over  their  heads  and  the  flying  of  fragments,  when  there  rushes 
to  every  lip  the  words  '  Where  did  that  one  go  to  ? '  In  no 
sense  in  itself  a  humorous  situation  :  on  the  contrary,  a  tragic 
one.  During  one  of  the  intervals  between  repetitions  of  this 
particular  experience,  Bruce  Bairnsfather  sketched  it  upon  paper, 
and  handed  it  round.  It  was  voted  a  truthful  record  of  an 
actuality,  and  it  was  suggested  that  Bairnsfather  should  ^  send 
it   up    somewhere.' 

To  *  send  something  up  somewhere '  was  not  altogether  a 
thing  un thought  of  at  any  time  by  Bruce  Bairnsfather.  On  the 
contrary,  it  had  occurred  to  him  often  that  he  might  do  this 
selfsame  thing.  In  the  case  of  this  particular  sketch,  however, 
the  soldier-artist  had  thoughts  at  the  back  of  his  mind.  Cer- 
tainly he  would  *  send  it  up  somewhere,'  but  precisely  where  ? 
To  a  comic  paper  ?  Well,  perhaps  :  it  might  amuse  the  readers 
of  one  week's  issue,  be  passed  on,  and  forgotten.  No,  reasoned 
Bairnsfather,  this  sketch  shall  go  to  London,  but  it  shall  do  more 
than  merely  amuse  a  minute  fraction  of  London  in  its  tram  or 
'bus,  or  tea-shop.  It  shall  make  a  considerable  portion  of 
London  think  :  realize  something,  even  in  jest,  of  what  really  is  at 
this  place  they  vaguely  talk  of  as  '  The  Front,'  and  of  what  are 
the  true  feelings  of  the  real  human  Tommy  who  has  gone  there, 

5 


^"^'\\a.km  ^>vu    Iwl  W<   4€4/HJ?j     at     Il<r/\U    . 


a/vU -fe.    aii.   b&u^  ^''  cmjJl  .         QiaaJTU 


il-^oM' 


JypJH 


^  M^ey      '^^ 


I 


K 


Qyi^a^JJfiJiV^ 


LETTERS  TO  A  [FRIEND  WRITTEN  FROM  A  CAMP  IN   ENGLAND. 


68  FRAGMENTS 


An  illustrated  paper  it  had  to  be,  and  various  processes  of  reason- 
ing led  him  to  decide  on  the  Bystander,  which  had,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  announced  its  eagerness  to  receive  humorous  sketches  from 
artists  on  active  service. 

The  sketch  was  immediately  accepted,  and  was  reproduced  in  the 
Bystander  of  March  31st.    On  the  ninth  of  April  off  went  another. 

*  I  herewith  enclose  you  another  black-and-white  sketch 
entitled  "  They've  evidently  seen  me,"  '  wrote  Bairnsfather.  *  I 
hope  it  will  meet  with  your  approval.  Although  I  do  not 
observe  from  a  chimney  myself,  yet  at  the  present  time  I  happen 
to  ^*  live  "  in  a  house.  By  ''  live  "  I  mean  waiting  for  the  next 
shell  to  come  through  the  roof.' 

This  letter  revealed  to  the  editor  of  the  Bystander  what  he 
had  hardly  dared  to  hope,  i.e.,  that  not  only  was  his  new  and 
sudden  *  discovery,'  if  the  word  may  be  used  without  patronage, 
a  humorist  in  line  but  also  in  word.  Consequently  a  series  of 
other  transactions  followed  in  which  Bairnsfather  fired  each  time, 
and  did  not  once  miss  the  bull.  The  uniform  acceptability  of 
his  work  became  a  joyous  monotony  in  the  editorial  office. 
What  was  something  of  a  revelation,  however,  was  the  instant 
appreciation  that  greeted  his  early  sketches  from  the  military 
itself.  A  storm  of  enthusiasm  too  rare,  alas!  in  readers  of 
illustrated  papers,  broke  over  the  offices  of  the  Bystander  as 
a  result  of  the  first  of  the  Bairnsfather  *  Fragments.' 


''^ji'Mt&-ajA  o\^iksi  ^-OMm 


THE    HERALD   OF   THE  DAWN. 

A   '  Fragment '  in  the  Making. 


[To  face  p.  69 


FRAGMENTS  69 


'  Every  one  here  is  talking  about  the  pictures.  ...  I  think  they 
are  perfect.  By  far  away  the  best  and  most  Hfelike  caricatures 
we  have  seen  of  the  war,'  wrote  one  subaltern.  '  You  have 
livened  many  a  dull  hour  in  the  trenches,'  wrote  another.  *  The 
best  products  of  the  war ' ;  *  True  to  life  as  a  dot.  All  details 
correct ' ;  *  The  true  story  of  things  as  they  exist ' ;  '  We  simply 
howled ' ;  *  All  Bairnsfather's  pictures  are  on  the  walls  in  our 
messroom ' ;  '  Absolutely  it/  and  so  on  and  so  forth,  ran  the 
letters  that  poured  into  the  offices  from  Somewhere  in  France, 
together  with  applications  to  have  first  refusal  of  the  originals 
when   offered   for   sale. 

In  due  course,  with  the  usual  suddenness  of  casualties, 
the  feared-for  thing  happened  to  Bruce  Bairnsfather — the 
wound  described  in  the  last  chapter,  which  announced  itself  to 
the  Bystander  in  a  letter  headed  ^  King's  College  Hospital, 
Denmark   Hill.' 

*  I  was  very  sorry  not  to  have  been  able  to  write  and 
acknowledge  your  letter,  but  unfortunately  we  got  rather  busy 
about  then,  and  now,  as  a  result  of  the  recent  occurrences  at 
Ypres,  I  am  docked  for  repairs,'  was  the  beginning  of  this 
letter.  May  3rd,  191 5,  upon  reading  which,  the  editor  of  the 
Bystander  ordered  a  member  of  his  staff  to  proceed  forthwith 
to  Denmark  Hill  and  ask  permission  to  present  compliments  and 
kind  inquiries ;    also  to  notify  the  wounded  officer  that,  when 


70  FRAGMENTS 


well   enough,  his   presence  at  Tallis  House  would  be  welcome. 
Baimsfather  records   that  the  psychological   effect  upon  him  of 
this — to  the  editor  a  mere  civility,  and  nothing  else — was  remark- 
able.   To   be  actually  wanted  \    That  was   indeed   a  novelty  of 
sensation.    In   Baimsfather 's   case,  such   is   his   temperament,   it 
had  the  reverse  of  the  effect  it  has  on  some.    Instead  of  self- 
satisfaction,  he  felt  an  intense  desire  to  respond  to  the  call,  to 
justify  to  the  full  the  confidence  shown  in  him.    When  he  paid 
his  visit  to  TaUis  House,  it  was  with  as  full  a  rough  sketch- 
book as  ever  was  seen  by  the  functionaries  of  that  establishment. 
...    It    must    have    taken    some    hours    to    cover    the    whole 
ground  of  the  interview,  but  at  the  end  of  it,  Baimsfather  and 
his  editor    had    established    a    complete    mutual    understanding, 
which   was    that    the    former  was   to  '  produce  the   war,'  as  ex- 
perienced by  those  taking    part    in    it,    by    weekly    instalments. 
Baimsfather  was  given  carte-blanche.    The  sketch-book,  and  the 
work   already   done,   had   been    enough   to   convince   the   editor 
that  the  '  goods  '  were  there,  and  that  all  that  was  now  wanted 
was  their  delivery  and  display.    The    public  would  do  the  rest 
— and   the   public   did.    By   the   arrival   of   Christmas,   the   first 
stage  of  the  Baimsfather  offensive  had  reached  its  objectives,  and 
thence  onward  there  was  no  '  retirement  according  to  plan,'  but 
only  a  continued  pressure  forward  from  height  to  height.    The 
Christmas  number  of  the  By  slander ^  191 5>  contained  as  its  pihce 


"£ 


i\  lervoY  KsiH^^  above  ou'vKezul^. 

I  SoiccCu  J  are  to  lTnVx\^ 

of  h'btl'  tuu^l    dooim  ^^"  ed^V.  om  Ay^US 

Il^  nol-tke  hn^xthasbiJT^K  0^  Kell 
IKese  nrt^CT    rtoi'  a.  jot 


9«. 


V^iirh  wkick  W/e  Have  to  ^raj^ble 
Its  'if  IV?-  See^wolKe^f   ov\e-— — 
floretiko^  ?Lun  an4    ?1PPLB, 


BAIRNSFATHER   AS    A   VERSIFIER. 
71 


72  FRAGMENTS 


de  resistance  the  *  Fragment '  which  is  best  known  to  all  the 
world.  The  '  Fragment '  in  question  was  that  entitled  '  Well,  if 
you  knows   of  a  better   'ole,   go  to   it.' 

The  pubHc  saw  it  and  collapsed.  It  was  the  limit.  A 
funny  picture  enough,  that  of  two  men  engaged  in  a  furious 
squabble  in  the  midst  of  a  bombardment,  but  the  subject  of 
the  quarrel — i.e.,  whether  by  any  possible  chance  either  of  them 
could  be  in  a  worse  predicament — seemed  somehow  to  hit  the 
pubhc  in  its  tenderest  spot.  Why  ?  Well,  just  this  way.  Christ- 
mas, 1915,  marked  the  lowest  level  of  the  Allied  fortimes,  and 
angry  pessimism  was  the  note  of  the  day.  We,  the  Allied  nations, 
were  in  an  *  'ole,'  and  we  knew  it,  and  the  question  we  were  all 
wrangling  about,  between  bombardments,  was  whether  the  future 
was  going  to  show  things  worse,  or  possibly  better.  There  was 
therefore  a  symbolism  about  the '  Better  'Ole  '  picture  that  raised 
it  altogether  above  the  ordinary  '  Fragment '  level.  Everybody 
said  to  everybody  else  when  a  dispute  arose  as  to  modus 
operandi,  *  Well,  if  you  knows,'  etc.  It  got  on  to  the  stage.  It 
was  made  the  subject  (with  acknowledgments)  of  poUtical  car- 
toons. One  of  them  showed  the  Married  Recruit  and  Asquith 
in  the  *  'ole,'  another  put  Kaiser  Bill  and  Kaiser  Joseph  into 
it.  No  cartoon  of  the  war,  in  actual  fact,  hit  the  public  so 
much  as  that  of  the  two  desperate  men  in  the  Johnson  'ole, 
and  the  only  doubt  for  Bairnsfather  in  the  mind  of  the  readers 


i^nxA 


m . 


S*' 


•^' 


&M 


THANKING    A    FRIEND    FOR    A    CHRISTMAS    PRESENT   OF   A    PIE. 

73 


74  FRAGMENTS 


of  the  Bystander  was  whether  he  himself  would  succeed  in  find- 
ing a  '  better  'ole  '  at  any  future  time  than  this  cartoon.  People 
feared  that  it  might  be  his  climax — and  people  were  wrong. 
By  February,  he  had  added  to  it  and  its  predecessors  sufficient 
cartoons  to  justify  the  publishers  in  issuing  Fragments  from 
France,  which  was  the  first  revelation  of  Bairnsfather's  existence 
to  the  wider  public  that  does  not  subscribe  to  sixpenny  illus- 
trated weeklies — the  public  of  the  millions.  The  sale  of 
this  slim  volume  of  forty  odd  sketches  exceeded  that  of  any 
other  book  of  cartoons  within  the  recollection  of  the  book- 
stall clerk.  Edition  after  edition  ran  out,  and  thousand  after 
thousand  were  reprinted,  until  the  publisher  began  to  be  con- 
cerned seriously  for  his  supplies  of  paper.  The  book  found  its 
way  into  the  hands  of  everybody,  from  the  highest  downwards. 
Criticism  came,  of  course.  One  fine  day,  there  came  on 
official  paper,  over  the  signature  of  an  eminent  political  per- 
sonage, a  reasoned  appreciation  of  the  sketches,  and  an  earnest 
entreaty  that  Captain  Baimsfather  who  had  *  become  a  factor 
in  the  situation,  as  was  Gilray  in  the  Napoleonic  Wars,'  should 
avoid  casting  ridicule  at  the  British  Army,  or  giving  the  impression 
that  it  was  less  serious  of  purpose  than  the  Armies  of  the  other  Allies, 
Fear  was  expressed  as  to  the  way  the  French  might  regard  the 
Bairnsfather  Army,  with  its  incorrigible  spirit  of  levity  and  its 
complete  lack  of  proper  respect  for  the  dignity  of   war. 


FRAGMENTS 


75 


The  editor  was  just  meditating  on  the  best  form  of  answer 
to  this  when  there  was  announced  another  eminent  gentleman, 
from  the  same  department,  who  had  called  to  know  whether 
permission  could  be  granted  to  a  request  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment to  reproduce  the  *  Fragments  '  from  time  to  time  in  the 
official  Bulletin  des  Armees  !  It  was  thought  that  such  a  request 
was  the  best  possible  answer  to  any  doubts  as  to  the  attitude 
of  our  Allies  towards  the  humour  of  Tommy  as  expressed  by 
Bairnsfather.  It  occurred  that  among  our  own  officials  there 
might  exist  a  spirit  described  by  our  Allies  in  the  phrase  ^  plus 
royaliste  que  le  rot  I ' — a  tendency  to  be  more  concerned  for  our 
appearance  in  foreign  eyes  than  were  the  foreigners,  to  be 
inclined  to  forget  the  invocation  of  the  national  bard  that 
'  England  to  herself  do  rest  but  true.' 

During  the  months  following  his  wound  at  Ypres,  Bairns- 
father was  engaged  as  a  machine  gun  instructor  at  home.  In 
due  course,  however,  he  found  his  way 
back  again  to  France,  and  cheered  Tommy 
up  during  the  whiles  of  waiting  for  the  great 
Push  by  some  of  his  happiest  inspirations, 
which  went  to  complete  *  More  Fragments 
from  France,'  and  to  form  the  nucleus  of 
yet  a  third  volume. 


[To  face  p.  76, 


THE    SIXTH    FRAGMENT 


THE    ESSENCE    OF    ^FRAGMENTS':   A    REAL 

CONVERSATION 

IT  was  during  his  leave,  after  some  months  of  this,  that  the 
writer  was  successful  in  getting  Baimsfather  to  talk  at 
leisure  on  his  way  of  looking  at  things.  In  the  short, 
sharp  and  decisive  interviews  it  had  been  possible  to  get  on 
the  subjects  of  his  pictures  and  publications,  it  had  been  difficult 
to  fathom  the  depths  of  a  subtle  nature,  or  quite  to  discover 
exactly  what  was  the  true  source  of  his  inspiration.  His  talent 
is  not  that  of  the  mere  picker-up  of  unconsidered  trifles. 
Active  as  his  pencil  is,  and  always  has  been,  it  is  only  the 
means  by  which  accident  has  designed  something  should  be  given  to 
the  world.  It  may  seem  to  be  calling  that  something  by  a  big 
name  if  one  calls  it  the  Psychology  of  the  Soldier  at  War,  but 
it  is  probable  that  *  Fragments  '  will  be  regarded  by  historical 
writers  of  to-morrow  as  something  more  than  a  mere  book  of 
funny  soldier  sketches.  Already,  the  correspondence  which  has 
come  to  him  reveals  how  deep  is  the  note  he  has  struck  :  and 
the  presence  of  *  Fragments  '   on  the  tables  of  the  leaders   of 

79 


8o  FRAGMENTS 


politics,  war  and  society    shows  that  it  is  not  in    the  light  of 
mere   entertainment   that   the   work  is   regarded. 

One  War  Office  official  reported  that,  on  the  day  after 
the  publication  of  Volume  I,  the  whole  work  of  his  depart- 
ment was  stopped.  Persons  calling  to  see  him  on  business 
— one  of  them  was  a  very  important  personage  indeed — found 
themselves  turning  over  the  pages  of  '  Fragments/  with  the 
result   that   the  object   of  the   call   was   completely   forgotten. 

As  what  follows  is  an  ^interview/  the  writer  must  refer  to 
himself  in  the  first  person  singular. 

It  was  at  Bishopton  that  I  succeeded  in  digging  Bairnsfather 
out  of  his  trench  of  reticence,  and  I  went  prepared.  He  was 
just  finishing  one  of  the  later  '  Fragments.'  It  was  the  one 
which  figures  in  the  third  of  his  books  on  ^  Fragments  '  and 
which  bears  the  undercut :  '  Where  do  yer  want  this  put,  Sargint  ?  ' 

The  picture  depicts  a  Tommy  with  a  look  of  extreme  per- 
plexity on  his  face  carrying  a  contrivance  known  as  a  tripod, 
that  is  the  crossed  supports  of  a  barbed  wire  section.  On  the 
horizon  are  the  usual  ridiculous  Hims. 

*  Well,'  said  Bairnsfather,  settling  on  the  settee  imdemeath  a  huge 
scarlet  sunshade,  *  it  doesn't  mean  anything  in  particular.  It's 
just  a  pathetic  little  wisp  of  humanity  who  happens  to  be,  like 
millions  of  others,  engaged  in  the  entirely  unfamiliar  business 
of  war.    He  doesn't  want  to  be  there  :    nor  does  he  want  parti- 


THE    'OUT    SINCE    MONS '    MAN,    WHO    HAS    INSPIRED    SOME    OF 
BAIRNSFATHER'S    MORE    SERIOUS,  SKETCHES. 


[To  face  f. 


FRAGMENTS  8i 


cularly  not  to  be  there.  But  there  he  is,  and  at  this  particular 
moment  he  happens  to  be  responsible  for  the  disposal  of  a 
heavy  and  altogether  repulsive  thing  called  a  tripod.  He  doesn't 
object  to  it  on  principle.  He  knows  these  things  are  necessary 
for  the  conduct  of  war.  But  he  does  very  much  indeed  want 
to  get  rid  of  that  tripod,  and  to  get  rid  of  it  is  the  only  thing 
in  life  that  matters  to  him  at  the  moment.  His  whole  soul  goes 
out  in  the  question  to  the  sergeant,  and  everything  to  him 
depends  on  whether  the  sergeant  gives  him  a  definite  or  an 
indefinite  reply.  To  him,  the  disposal  of  that  tripod  is  of  more 
importance  than  the  whole  future  of  Serbia  or  Belgium.  It  is 
the  problem  of  the  war.  That's  all  I  can  say  about  it.  I  don't 
know  that  it's  particularly  funny.     But  there  it  is.' 

I  didn't  know  myself  that  it  was  particularly  funny.  But 
when  I  looked  at  it  again,  in  view  of  Bairnsfather's  explanation,  a 
laugh  surged  up  from  deep  in  my  interior,  and  lasted  quite  a 
long  time.  I  sought  further  explanations  and  we  turned  over 
'  Fragments  '  at  leisure. 

I  came  to  the  picture  entitled  '  I'm  sure  they'll  hear  this 
damned  thing  squeakin'.'  What,  I  asked,  is  the  actual  humour 
of  that  situation? 

Again,   my   artist   seemed   diffident. 

*  It's  much  the  same  as  the  man  with  the  tripod,'  he  said. 
*  That  fellow's  job  at  the  moment  is  the   drawing  of  water  out 

6 


82  FRAGMENTS 


of  that  pump.  He  knows  water  has  to  be  drawn,  and  that  he 
is  responsible  for  drawing  it.  But  he  does  think  it  a  cruel 
world  which  makes  the  filling  of  a  mere  jar  of  water — water, 
mind  you,  not  rum,  or  anything  really  worth  dying  for — such 
a  dangerous  proceeding.  He  is  fully  prepared  to  be  shot,  or 
gassed,  or  bombed,  or  bayoneted  in  battle.  That's  what  he  went 
out  expecting.  But  he  doesn't  like  the  prospect  of  meeting  his 
end  because  a  "  damned  pump "  squeaks.  All  pumps  in  Flanders 
squeak,  and  if  this  ^*  Fragment  "  had  a  lot  of  success,  it's  because 
every  man  in  northern  France  was  perfectly  sure  it  was  the 
particular  pump  he  had  had  experience  of  himself.  I  had  heaps 
of  letters   claiming  the  pump,   and   I'm  still   receiving   them.' 

*  Now,'  I  continued.  '  People  say  that  your  Tommy  is 
represented  as  '*  fed  up."  I've  heard  it  said  that  to  depict  the 
British  Tommy  as  fed  up  is  to  give  a  false  impression  of  the 
spirit  of  our  troops.    What  about  that  ?    For  instance — ' 

We   turned   to   the   famous   picture    entitled   '  So    Obvious.' 

*  Who   made   that  'ole  ?  ' 
'  Mice.' 

'  Now,'  I  said,  '  the  man  sitting  down  is  undoubtedly  fed  up, 
isn't  he?' 

'  Yes.  He's  so  fed  up  that  when  his  attention  is  directed  to  the 
hole,  which  he  knows  is  there,  he  doesn't  even  look  round. 
He's  been  conscious  of  that  hole  for  days  and  days.    He  doesn't 


UJ 
en 

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DQ 

< 

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O 

z 

5 

H 


84 


FRAGMENTS  85 


want  his  attention  directed  to  it  at  all,  and  when  it  is,  he 
gives  an  answer  which  he  knows  to  be  inadequate  and  uncon- 
vincing.   That's   that,'   concluded   Bairnsfather. 

We  turned  next  to  the  '  Fragment '  called  '  The  Thirst  for 
Reprisals.' 

'  'And  me  a  rifle,  some   one.    I'll   give  these 's  'ell  for 

this.' 

'  There,'  said  Bairnsfather,  *  you  see  just  hate  concentrated.  The 
figure  under  the  debris  feels,  for  the  first  time,  that  full  spirit 
of  hate  for  the  enemy,  and  the  full  desire  to  bring  about  his 
annihilation,  and  it  isn't  because  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
taniUy  or  even  the  murder  of  Miss  Cavell,  or  the  general  out- 
rages of  the  Prussian  military  caste.  It's  just  because,  at  this 
particular  moment,  he  has  been  placed  in  an  intolerable  situa- 
tion, and  he  desires  to  fix  the  responsibility  on  the  guilty 
ones  that  he  can  get  at,  even  if  it's  only  with  one  hand.  The 
war  has  just  been  brought  home  to  him  for  the  first  time. 
If  the  British  public  had  the  war  brought  home  to  them  in 
the  same  way,  they'd  feel  the  same  thing,  and  the  trouble  is 
that  they  haven't,  except  where  the  Zepps  fly,  and  in  conse- 
quence, they  don't  feel  the  war.  They  might  either  end  it 
to-morrow  or  let  it  go  on  for  years  and  years.  But  whichever 
they  did,   it  wouldn't  be  as   a  result  of  actual  experience. 

'The  Tommies  I  depict  as  fed  up  are  fed  up  with  war  not 


86  FRAGMENTS 


because  it  is  war,  but  because  of  the  ways  in  which  it  expresses 
itself  in  regard  to  the  individual.  War  is  a  business  in  which 
you  have  too  much  of  everything.  When  you  walk,  you  have  to 
walk  too  far :  when  you  rest,  you  have  to  rest  too  long :  when 
you  have  leave,  it's  too  short,  and  when  nasty  things  happen, 
they  always  happen  at  the  wrong  moment,  as  for  instance  when 
you're  washing,  or  changing  your  socks,  or  boiling  a  kettle.  It's 
that  sort  of  thing  that  causes  my  Tommy  to  be  fed  up,  not  the 
state  of  war  itself,  which  Tommy  accepts  without  repining.  He 
quarrels  not  with  the  show  itself,  only  with  the  way  the  show 
is  conducted.  The  spirit  of  the  thing  is  expressed  by  the 
Tommy  on  the  transport  who  is  saying  ^'  I  wish  they'd  'old  this 
war  in  England,  don't  you  ? "  It's  the  idea  that  this  war  is 
something  that's  being  ''  held,"  and  what's  wrong  with  it  in  the 
case  of  the  victim  of  sea-sickness,  is  that  it's  being  "  held " 
in  the  wrong  place.* 

These  few  *  explanations '  don't  perhaps  make  the  jokes  any 
the  fimnier  :  what  they  do  explain  is  Baimsfather's  own  mental 
attitude — his  philosophy,  if  you  may  call  it  so.  He  regards  the 
war  as  it  affects  the  individual,  and  in  no  one  of  his  cartoons 
does  he  offer  one  word  of  criticism  of  the  war  in  itself — no^ 
not  even  where  the  Him  himself  is  concerned. 

Baimsfather  is  as  good  a  Hun  hater  as  anybody  when  at  the 
front,  and  I  find  his  views  on  the  ethics   of    the  war,  when  he 


ON   LEAVE. 
By  Gad,  it's  worth  it  ! ' 


[To  face  p.  87 


FRAGMENTS 


expresses  them,  to  be  as  orthodox  as  those  of  any  man  Hving. 
But  he  doesn't  hate  with  his  pencil  as  Raemakers  hates.  He  has 
no  propaganda.  The  sketches  where  Huns  figure  show  the  Hun 
just  to  be  a  human  being — as  nearly  as  possible.  One  of  the 
pictures  that  made  me  laugh  as  much  as  any  other  is  that 
which  shows  Fritz  exclaiming  *  Gott  strafe  this  barbed  wire.' 
Here  we  see  the  family  resemblance  to  Tommy.  Fritz  doesn't 
strafe  England  :  merely  the  barbed  wire  which  happens  for  the 
moment  to  be  causing  him  annoyance.  For,  as  '  Germanski 
oflficer '  writes,  from  somewhere  in   Siberia  (see  page  93) : 

*  Situations  of  the  kind  so  truthfully  depicted  by  Captain 
Baimsfather  are  not  exclusive  prerogatives  of  the  British.  No 
more  is  the  standard  unpleasantness  of  such  situations — humour 
— an   Allied   monopoly.' 

Another  Hun  picture  is  ^  The  Tactless  Teuton ' — a  member  of 
the  Gravediggers'  Corps  joking  with  a  private  in  the  Orphans' 
Battalion  prior  to  a  frontal  attack. 

It  is  happy  not  only  in  its  portrayal,  but  also  in  the  subtle 
way  in  which,  when  Bairnsfather  has  a  joke  that  is  sHghtly 
brutal,  he  fathers  it  upon  the  enemy.  It  is  the  same  when 
the  joke  depicts  intoxication.  Bairnsfather  cautiously,  and  with 
an  eye  on  the  Censor,  illustrates  the  *  Maxim  Maxim '  that 
*  machine  guns  form  a  valuable  support  for  infantry '  by  showing 
the    intoxicated    person    to    be    an    enemy.     So   safe !     Other- 


88  FRAGMENTS 


wise,  on  the  whole,  he  leaves  the  enemy  alone — in  his  pictures. 
He  professes  rather  to  despise  mere  pen-and-ink  abuse  of  a 
person  who  is  being  dealt  with  by  more  drastic  means,  and 
who,  in  any  case,  isn't  handy  to  retaliate  in  kind. 

Among  Baimsfather's  sketches  are,  of  course,  those  which  are 
mere  plain  pictorial  jokes,  which  don't  bear  any  special  analysis, 
or  depict  any  particular  state  of  mind.  We  get  chaff  pure  and 
simple,  of  the  kind  which  prompts  the  query,  '  Well,  Alfred,  'ow 
are  the  cakes  ? '  in  which  Bairns  father  shows  himself  to  have  a 
pretty  way  of  combining  a  funny  picture  with  a  funny  '  tag.' 
We  have  the  delightful  drawing  '  What  time  do  they  feed  the 
sea-lions,  Alf  ? '  the  origin  of  which  is  doubtless  fact,  for  he  takes 
it  on  himself  on  some  occasions  to  depict  the  contrast  between 
the  real  and  the  romantic.  Possibly  his  home  surroundings 
have  had  something  to  do  with  this  habit  of  thought,  for 
wandering  aroimd  Warwick  and  Kenilworth,  in  and  out  of 
Stratford,  with  the  spirit  of  the  Bard  ever  present,  the  mind 
acquires  the  habit  of  transporting  itself  back  over  the  years,  and 
one  finds  oneself  often  contrasting  the  most  mundane  things  as 
they  are  with  the  things  as  they  probably  were.  Bairnsfather 
contrasts  the  romance  with  the  reality  of  war  in  two  pictures, 
'  Other  Times,  Other  Manners,'  in  which  we  see  Sir  Plantagenet 
Smythe  at  the  battle  of  Vin  Ordinaire,  exclaiming  '  On,  on,  ye 
noble  English '  on  the  one  side,  and  his  descendant  Lieut.  P. 


EXTRACT  FROM  A  LETTER  TO  A  FRIEND. 


89 


90  FRAGMENTS 


de  Smythe  at  the  taking  of  Dead-pig  Farm  exclaiming,  as  he 
crouches,  revolver  in  hand,  '  Come  on,  you  chaps.    We'll  show 

these s  what  side  their bread's  buttered  on.'     The  other 

shows  '  That  Sword  '  as  the  young  officer  thought  he  was  going 
to  use  it,  and  how.  he  does  use  it — as  a  toasting-fork.  I  rather 
fancy  that  picture,  which  was  one  of  the  early  ones,  ^  did  its 
bit '  by  revealing  to  those  at  home  how  little  of  romance 
and  gallantry  there  is  to  compensate  the  boys  of  the  best 
families  for  the  dangers  they  run,  the  effect  of  which  must  be 
to  make  our  admiration   for  them  all  the  greater. 

Little  glimpses  into  the  future  form  a  feature  of  the 
scheme,  as  for  instance  the  two  venerable  greybeards  in  the 
trenches  remarking  '  I  see  the  War  Babies'  battalion  is  coming 
out,'  and  the  picture  showing  Gen.  Sir  Ian  Jelloid  at  home, 
who  has  found  the  interior  of  a  howitzer  an  excellent  substitute 
for  his  country  seat  Shrapnel  Park,  being  infinitely  cheaper  and 
not  a  bit  draughty  if  you  keep  the  breech  closed.  A  kindred 
country-house  touch  is  given  in  the  sketch  where  Colonel 
Chutney,  V.C.,  home  on  short  leave,  decides  to  keep  in  touch 
with  dug-out  life  by  taking  his  night's  rest  in  a  cucumber  frame. 

Trifles,  these,  perhaps,  but  the  world  of  black-and-white  art 
humour  has  reason  to  welcome  the  country-house  touch  as  a 
relief  from  the  eternal  towniness  of  the  past.  Whatever  may  be 
Bairnsfather's    love    of    the    crowd,    he    is    equally   a   lover   of 


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A    CHRISTMAS    CARD,    1914. 


[/'o  /a«  p.  99 


FRAGMENTS 


91 


solitude  and  stagnancy.  Open  meadows  and  still  streams  and  tall 
upright  trees  and  silence  have  an  immense  fascination  for  him.  His 
early  efforts  at  sketching — some  examples  are  on  the  walls  at  Bishopton 
— were  of  lanes  and  fields  around  his  home  :  he  has  also  a  love  of 
ruins.  It  was  an  irony  that  his  penchant  should  be  gratified  in 
such  terrible  scenes 
as  Flanders.  Yet  in 
the  double-page 
drawing  *  We  are  at 
present  staying  at  a 
farm,'  one  sees  the 
invincible  humour  at 
work  on  a  scene  after 
Bairnsfather's  own 
heart.  Only  one  with 
a  keen  eye  for  coun- 
try life  could  have 
noticed  those  pathetic 
evidences  of  rustic 
peace.  I  suggest  that 
no  town  -  bred 
humorist  would  have 
thought  of  that  de- 
ceased donkey.    5 


92  FRAGMENTS 


Another  grim  satire  on  country  life  in  war-time  is  in  that 
grimly  humorous  picture  which  shows  *  Directing  the  way  at 
the  Front.'  ^Yer  knows  the  dead  'orse  'cross  the  road.  Well, 
keep  straight  on  till  yer  comes  to  a  perambulator  'longside  a 
Johnson  'ole.' 

Of  compliments  Bruce  Baimsfather  is  fond,  as  is  every  true 
artist  of  comedy  whose  function  it  is  to  deserve  compliments. 
It  rejoices  his  heart  to  see  his  shafts  go  home.  He  confessed 
to  me,  however,  that  there  are  tributes  he  values  more  than 
others,  and  among  these  is  that  which  came  straight  from  the 
heart  of  the  trenches  to  the  Edinhmgh  Evening  News — 

'  To  us  out  here.  Fragments  are  the  quintessence  of  Hfe. 
We  sit  moping  over  a  smoky  charcoal  fire  in  a  dug-out,  cursing 
the  luck  that  has  brought  us  here.  Suddenly  some  one  more 
wide-awake  than  others  remembers  the  ''  Fragments."  Out  it 
comes,  and  we  laugh  uproariously  over  each  picture,  for  are 
not  these  the  very  things  we  are  witnessing  every  day — incidents 
full  of  tragic  humour  ?  ' 

Another  valued  tribute  was  that  of  the  well-known  v/riter 
who  signs  himself  ^Ensign,'  and  writes  in  the  OuHook:  'You 
may  have  possibly  seen  Captain  Bruce  Bairnsfather's  two  inimit- 
able pictures  depicting  the  hour  before  going  into  trenches  and 
the  hour  after  coming  out.  Well,  they  are  absolutely  "  It " 
Lord,  how  we  laughed  over  them  in  the  front  line  :    and  mind 


FRAGMENTS  93 


you  I  am  not  puffing  Bairnsfather  :  he  does  not  need  it  .  .  .  but 
take  it  from  me  he  is  one  of  the  people  who  by  supplying 
roars  of  laughter  and  joy  to  the  troops  are  helping  to  win  the 
war.' 

Lastly,  one  must  not  omit  that  remarkable  tribute  from 
'  the  enemy '  himself,  to  which  allusion  was  made  earlier.  It 
reached  the  Bystander  office  in  June,  and  read  as  follows — 

'  Somewhere  '  in  Siberia, 

May^  1916. 
[To  the  Editor  of  the  Bystander.] 
Dear  Sir,— 

You  will  no  doubt  be  gratified  to  hear  that  a  copy  of  your 
publication,  Fragments  from  France^  by  Captain  Bairnsfather, 
has  penetrated  to  the  very  heart  of  the  Asiatic  Continent  and, 
chancing  upon  a  colony  of  officers  in  somewhat  doleful  cir- 
cumstances, occasioned  a  most  welcome  spell  of  hilarity  there. 

It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  that  your  gratification  will 
undergo  a  violent  shock  on  the  disclosure  that  the  officers  in 
question  are  German  prisoners — members  of  that  ill-favoured 
people  which,  according  to  the  established  notion  among  Eng- 
lishmen, is  totally  void  of  humour  and,  to  use  the  term  of  your 
*  Foreword,'  went  into  the  war  scowling. 

Reluctant  as  I  am  to  return  good  with  evil,  I  cannot  spare 


94  FRAGMENTS 


you  the  disappointing  intelligence  that  certain  fears  expressed 
in  the  *  Foreword  '  already  mentioned  have  proved  groundless. 
Far  from  being  *  infuriated '  on  turning  the  pages  of  Frag- 
ments from  France^  the  enemy  so  far  forgot  his  true  nature 
as  to  enjoy  a  very  hearty  laugh. 

Situations  of  the  kind  so  truthfully  pictured  by  Captain 
Baimsfather  are  not  exclusive  prerogatives  of  the  British.  No 
more  is  the  standard  remedy  against  the  spiritual  unpleasant- 
nesses of  such  situations — humour — an  '  Allies  '  monopoly. 
Publications  of  the  *  Fragments  '  type  are  as  popular  with  us 
as  with  you,  and  go  like  hot  cakes  when  to  be  had.  But  it's 
hard  to  beat  Captain  B.'s  rendering  of  the  subject. 

The  experience  of  the  Baron  of  Grogzwig,  who,  by  a 
timely  laugh  banished  the  genius  of  despair  and  suicide,  may 
be  likened  unto  the  more  recent  example  (illustrated  on  page 
i6  of  '  Fragments '),  in  which  Private  Jones  (late  Zogitoflf, 
comedy  wire  artist)  demonstrates  humour  as  a  reducer  of  hate. 
I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  whole  book  tends  towards  an 
effect  similar  to  that  produced  by  the  admirable  Mr.  Jones's 
stunts. 

This  avowal  on  the  part  of  '  an  arch  enemy '  is,  I  fear, 
calculated  to  compromise  you  horribly  if  ever  known  to  the 
persecutors  of  your  cartoon,  *  Reported  Missing '  (who,  by  the 
way,    are   very   likely   disguised    Teutons ;     or   how   would   you 


FRAGMENTS  95 


account  for  their  suspicious  lack  of  humour  ?).  Let  me,  there- 
fore, out  of  gratitude  for  enjoyment  bestowed  upon  us  (even 
though  that  bestowal  was  unintentional),  entreat  you  to  abstain 
from  carelessly  committing  this  dangerous  document  to  the 
paper-basket.  I  should  recommend  either  to  destroy  it  secretly 
at  the  dead  of  night,  or — after  sprinkling  well  with  holy  water — 
to  secret  it  in  the  confines  of  your  most  innocent-looking,  there- 
fore safest,  strong  box. 

I  very  much  regret  the  present  impossibility  of  enclosing 
the  conventional  card,  and  remain, 

Yours  truly, 

Germanski  Officer 
(temporarily  sidetracked). 

P.S.  I. — With  regard  to  the  subject  of  'hate,'  will  you 
permit  me  to  point  out  that  this  invigorating  quahty  is  less 
appertaining  to  the  fighting  soldier  than  to  the  inspired  civilian 
(uniformed  and  otherwise),  who  is  freshly  charged  with  it  every 
morning  at  breakfast  from  the  columns  of  his  daily  paper. 
(We  read  English  papers  here  occasionally,  and  tremble  in  our 
shoes  !) 

P.S.  2. — Compliments  to  Captain  Bairnsfather,  and  we 
should  like  him  to  know  that  we  are  so  pleased  to  provide 
a  source  of  innocent  amusement  in  the  shrinking  tendency  of 
our    forage    caps    and  ►the    generous    dimensions    of    our    waist 


96  FRAGMENTS 


measurement.  Alas,  that  there  should  exist  degenerate  excep- 
tions !  My  own  personal  '  outer  man '  lacks  both  these 
endearing  characteristics.    I  feel  quite  an  impostor  ! 

Captain  B.  has  an  observing  eye  for  the  coiffures  en  vogue 
among  the  belligerents.  It  remains  a  matter  of  taste  whether 
to  back  the  scalp  of  bristles  or  the  head  of  hair  like  a  wheatfield 
after  the  tornado  (as  patronized  by  your  Tommies  !).  Let  us 
meet  half  ways  and  call  it  a  choice  of  evils  ! 

Bruce  Bairnsfather,  in  conclusion,  is  no  exponent  of  the 
gospel  of  hate — no  true  soldier  is.  His  hatred  is  for  the  enemy  in 
the  field,  but  not  for  his  fellow  man.  This  being  the  case,  he 
values  this  testimony  from  the  enemy  that  his  humour  is  a 
'  reducer  of  hate.'  In  the  distant  days  to  come,  when  the  world  is 
at  peace,  perhaps  '  Fragments  '  may  penetrate  the  heart  of  the 
enemy  country  and  do  just  a  little  to  sow  on  the  stony  soil 
of  Teutonism  the  seed  of  that  humour  which,  had  they  but 
possessed  it  before,  would  have  restrained  the  Germans  from 
so  terribly  iin-humorous  an  act  as  to  plunge  the  whole  world 
into  war  with  themselves  on  the  wrong  side. 


Printed  in  Great' Britain  by  Butler  &  Tanner,  Frome  and  London 


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